Earl Mead, Bowyer from Cleveland Heights, OH

[Tox Collector]

Earl Mead was a bowyer out of Cleveland Heights, Ohio.  I spent several years in Ohio many years ago and recall hearing his name mentioned although I don't recall seeing any tackle that he made.  Hugh Soar in England has asked me for information on this bowyer and am wondering if anyone can help me with photos and information/descriptions regarding the bows and/or archery equipment that he made including time periods during which he made the tackle.  I do note that he received a patent for a nockless arrow in 1930 -- it is referred to in "Arab Archery" under the 'Note's section.  Apparently, he also worked as a surveyor besides making archery tackle.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Tox Collector]

I was able to located some information on Earl Mead and thought that others might be interested in the info as well.  I'm going to post the article from an old "Archery" magazine in several parts because of its length.

"Hickory - And Such!"

From pps. 24 & 25, of "Archery Magazine", Vol. 22, Oct., 1950.
 
By Stew Hamilton
4250 Warner Road, Cleveland 5, Ohio
(“Archery” Magazine, October, 1950 – pp. 24)
The boys and girls of the Cleveland Archery Club were lined up at the Community Center one night early in 1950.  They were really concentrating, and with good reason.  It was just before the fifth and last round of the National Olympic League indoor match and they wanted to get that warm-up practice in.  The Cleveland women’s team had taken first place six years and the men’s team four years in a row and both wanted to add another first to the list.
No one so much as turned a head at the sound of steps behind them, or at the opening of a tackle bow.  And yet a few minutes later when a faint “creak” rent the air every one of them sang out, “Hi ya, Bill!” or “Hello, Aingworth!”  They didn’t have to turn to know that the “Sec.” was there and stringing up old “Creaky.”
Now, just what does a bow that creaks have to do with “Hickory and Such?”  Well, let’s start off at the beginning and I’ll try to explain.  But first maybe I’d better explain why the explaining.  (“Hm – nice sentence”)
Lately there has been a heap of questions about laminated bows coming into the shop and the type most asked are, “Why do you use hickory in a bow?”, or “I don’t think too much of a hickory bow; can’t I use something else for a backing, or sub-backing?”, or fifty other variations.
To save myself the trouble of trying to answer those questions and more I’ll tell what little I know.
“Creaky” was one of a great many bows made by Earl Mead of Cleveland, back in the late ‘20’s.  It was a laminate composed of a hickory back on a birch core and an Osage facing, held together with Casco glue.  What’s more the sides were fluted (grooved out in the birch core), much the same as one make of a modern metal bow is grooved to reduce the mass weight of the limbs.
In the years from 1928 when Bill (Aingworth) bought the bow until 1950 when he decided to retire it, that bow had done a gosh awful amount of shooting with nary a failure.
Hickory played a major part in “Creaky’s” durability and of course the tough birch core and Osage facing helped.  Earl Mead had tried out a great many combinations of woods: walnut, yew, maple, white maple, lemonwood, Tennessee red cedar, lanswood (lancewood?), flat and edge-grain Osage, elm, beech and many others.  I can’t name half of them.
When Earl dropped out, Bill Folberth, Ed Able, Carl Oelschleger, Darle Neeper and several other Clevelanders carried on with the experiments.  I know that in different cities other good men did likewise, but I’m sorry to say I can’t name them and give them credit.

[Tox Collector]

The second part of the article is as follows:

The best combination these Clevelanders found was of hickory, yew and Osage and we still use it, only now a days we usually use it for a core and add special backings and facings.  The fact that the Cleveland men and women teams both came in first in the Olympic Rounds again in 1950 is proof of the smoothness and accuracy of the center-shot bows made of this combination.  
Someday, someone who knows more about the different trees than I may tell us about the different species of hickory.  Seems like I’ve read somewhere that there are thirteen species and they belong to the walnut family.  I really don’t know for sure.  This I do know, however, for bows the best of them all is the kind we call “pignut” or “bitter hickory” here in Ohio.  The second growth pignut – shag barg (I think that it should read “shag bark”) – a more common hickory, is a whiter, clearer looking wood and is fairly good but not as good as pignut.  The best I’ve ever had was obtained from a ski factory whose mills are in Alabama.
Second growth is the tall straight tree that grows in the younger forests.  That lonesome tree out in a pasture may make swell shade for cows, but isn’t worth a hoot for bow wood.
The trees should be cut in the winter and split in billets approximately six feet long, two inches wide, flat grain, and two inches thick and allowed to season for two years in a regular wood drying rack.  It can then be sawed into one-half inch laminations and after another six months on the rack be ready for use.  It is at its best for the next five years.  It seems odd but wood that is seasoned twelve years or more loses it strength and is no longer worth using.
Drying hickory, or any other bow wood, in an attic, is another poor policy.  Maybe it’s OK. in winter, but in summer the heat just about ruins it.  The basement would be OK. in the summer if it is not too damp and if you haven’t an outside drying rack.
However, it is not green hickory or the species of the wood that cause the biggest headaches to the bowyer, it is the over-seasoned, brittle stuff.  I can assure you that a brittle piece is worse than nothing as a backing.  I paid through the nose to find that out five years ago.  If you are making a bow and you have a little width to spare in the lamination it can be tested by sawing off a quarter inch piece from the side of the full length of the slat and testing it by breaking it into small pieces.  Good hickory will break in long slivers.  Poor stuff will snap off sharp.  If the wood is still too green it will bend like a hairpin but not break.  
The mistake that I made five years ago that was so costly, was in my not testing the full length of a batch of laminations out of one log.  I tested the ends and they seemed fine so I just went ahead and used them.  What I didn’t know was that there was a very dry “dead wood” spot about two feet from the end.  Every bow made out of the laminations from that log broke in the same place, at the dry spot.  
Splitting the log in the first place will give you a good straight grain for your billets.  Then if you saw them into slats, it pays to try to make each lamination as flat grained as possible, one or two grains in thickness being best, and following the grain for its full length.  That goes for all bow woods and especially for Osage and hickory.  Every time the saw cuts through from one grain to the next it reduces its tensile strength.  That’s a rule all the old bowyers know very well.
And that, I think, answers those questions about hickory.  Oh, yes, one more thing.  What made “Creaky” creak?
Well, back in ’36, Bill Aingworth took his bow to Carl Oelschleger for a take-apart job.  Carl did quite a bit of bow work in those days and he sawed the bow in half.  Then he fitted the sawed ends in an iron sleeve one inch square by six inches long, that had been cut out for a center-shot arrow rest.  Years later as the wood dried more and more it shrunk a little and loosened.  And so the “creak, creak.”

That's the end of the article!  The article contains some good info on building American Flat Bows out of hickory and other materials.  There were some great bowyers in the state of Ohio who did a lot of experimenting with various bow woods.  Enjoy!